


Damaged Tools of a Long War

by HSavinien



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Historical, M/M, Multi, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: This is the axe that she carries.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Lykon/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

Years after her first death, Andronika claims the double-headed axe from a fallen enemy. She was a votary of some god or other - Andronika did not bother wondering which, as no god’s curse seemed able to strike her down for any longer than a weapon of stone or wood or bronze. The axe will see better duty in Andronika’s hands than in those whose worship tended toward the blood of children.

She grows attached. The weapon is weighted well for her and the bronze sings in the air, the edge so much less brittle than stone, stronger than copper, able to be smoothed back to sharpness after use. She tends it with more care than she does her body, keeping the edge keen, the metal clean and polished. It becomes the only thing that lasts besides Andronika herself. She comes back quickly from death, and wakes more than once to kill an opportunist in the midst of trying to steal it. Only once does she wake to find her axe gone, and she hunts down the scavengers who took it from her body with great prejudice.

Only a few dozen years later, the axe shatters. 

She guts the man who deflected her blow, sending the axehead against a rock at the wrong angle. Wiping her knife on his tunic, she ignores the remnants of the battle as it moves away from her, and kneels to collect the pieces of the axe. Wrapping the metal in the man’s cloak, she straps the bundle to her back and wades grimly back into the fray, snatching a spear from a fallen warrior as she goes. Suddenly the pay she was promised to fight against these bandits has become much more vital.

Andronika takes the pieces to a metalworker, then another, until she finds someone who nods when she draws the axe’s shape in the dirt and sets to work shaping a mold of clay to recast it. She watches carefully as the apprentice stokes the fire. The pieces of the axe slowly soften and melt in the crucible until nothing remains but thick orange like burning honey, and she wonders idly if death by burning would kill her for good. The metalworker suggests firmly that she leave the tent and not think to steal any of their craft secrets. 

Andronika goes. She does not have the time to argue, nor the leisure to apprentice herself now. She started dreaming about another woman dying and returning, and she cannot go in search of her without a weapon. When the metalworker opens the tent flap again, he carries her axe-head, nearly as she remembers it. She can find a new piece of wood for a haft. She pays for the work and takes the new-old axe East. (Andronika does not find the person she seeks on that journey.)

The axe breaks. Andronika dies.

Again, and again, the bronze shatters or splits, or bends beyond mending. Andronika dies, and fights, and dies again until she becomes Andromache, as time moves past her. She apprentices to a smith after the first two times and learns the secrets of casting bronze, sharing her skill with Lykon when they meet, and then with Quỳnh. She saves the pieces and recasts and recasts them into the axe, changing its shape, adjusting its weight and heft as she goes. She makes Quỳnh new arrowheads and mends Lykon’s spear. She remakes the axe until steel overcomes bronze as the material of war. Working steel isn’t as simple. The forge must be hotter. The tools are more complicated. Andromache returns to the smiths.

They make the axe for her, following Andromache’s directions as to shape and weight. She pays for the axe three times until they find the balance between her desire and the new metal. The bronze that had been the axe, that she hammers into arrowheads for Quỳnh, except for three disks. With fire and hammer, those she turns into pendants like teardrops - one for each of them, marked with a pattern she remembers from her childhood, one that means family. It may have been a clan marking, or something else. Andromache can’t remember that anymore.

Steel lasts well, if it is taken care of properly. The axe lasts over a century before it must be remade. And so it goes, through the years.

The axe Andy uses is high-grade steel, which turns out to have been the metal with the longest sticking power over the centuries. The shape is a little fanciful to look at, but it is right for her.


	2. Chapter 2

Nile asks if she’s carried it for a long time. Andy knows it’s a question born of sentimentality - is that  _ her _ axe, from  _ way back. _

“Yes and no.” She blinks slowly from where she’s half-drowsing over a cup of tea. “It’s a tool, built to suit me and all that I know about fighting. It’s descended from many axes I’ve used over the years.”

Joe, tangled with Nicky on the couch across from them, laughs a little. “I was foolish once too, and asked when we met. She said much the same thing, and I realized quickly that steel hadn’t been around so long as our Andy.”

She shrugs. “Bronze was a big step up, initially.”

Nile makes an overwhelmed noise and Nicky stretches to pat her knee. “If it’s any consolation, my sword is only the, eh, third one I’ve had? Yes?” He checks with Joe, who nods. “One broken, one lost.”

“Mine is only a few years old, and the fourth I’ve owned. I bought it from a smith who does reconstructions,” Joe says. “She’s very good. If you want one for yourself…?”

“I’ll stick to guns and a knife, for now,” Nile says, shaking her head. “I’ve got training with those to draw on.”

Andy shrugs. “That’s what Booker always uses. You’re a warrior; you know what tools suit you.”

“You can watch us practice sometimes,” Joe suggests, “See if you’d like to learn.”

“I’ve  _ seen _ you guys practice. I’m pretty sure that swordfighting isn’t supposed to be quite that much like flirting.”

Nicky laughs. “Only when it’s with the right person.” He rumples Joe’s curls and adds, “Don’t worry, I will manage not to flirt with you if you want to spar.” 

“Maybe,” Nile says fondly. “I wouldn’t mind some sniper lessons, if you’re offering something more in the twenty-first century speed.”

“We should all spar.” Andy watches all three of them shift uncomfortably. “You should all spar,” she corrects. “Get used to moving around each other and working together. The Merrick thing went well, but Nile’s not used to being part of this yet. It takes practice.”

“Yes, boss,” Nicky agrees, and Joe hums agreement, but the hum is sleepy and Nile is curled into a ball on her chair.

“Maybe later,” Andy concedes. After they rest, then their newest warrior can learn more.

**Author's Note:**

> For more about Andy's bronze axe, see: http://www.bronze-age-craft.com/swordcasting.htm


End file.
